Hi all,

this is a bit of a busy chapter, I hope you can take it. Ive also tried to do something different here and created a 'movie' feel by offering you a mental sound track. In the story Selena chooses to listen to the music and I kind of imagined it being present in all the different scenes, a bit arty maybe but I hope you like it, especially imagine it all happening in that slow-mo-no-dialogue style.

I wouldnt expect you to listen to the music in its entirety, and I know the duration wont match your reading speeds but there are some good moments where the music really fits the mood of whats going on. Id at least like you to listen to the introduction of each movement, and Ive indicated where it appears against each mini-chapter title.

The piece of music ? It is Mozart's Requiem and the version I used to refer to can be seen on youtube here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Y2B55nKZY

CHAPTER XIX

Selena settled herself on her hotel room bed and flipped open her laptop, logged into her secure network and began to interrogate her mainframe. She took a slow deep breath and then began her work, Victor Reeves, former stockbroker, now cold corpse on the marble slab of some mortuary had been up to something and she was intrigued to find out what. What would focus her mind now would be some music, a classic.

"Ah yes" she thought ....

Mozart's Requiem K.626

=====================

INTROITUS 1:16

#The strings of the violin started the piece, their somber pace only lifted by the clarinets then the powerful brass ..... 'Requiem' said the male voices mournfully, - The Mass for the Dead .. Victor Reeves ..Stockbroker ....#

Selena began mining the data, the SEC held his registration, his trading histories, volume data, accounts,everything. Selena couldn't see anything unusual going on there though, the SEC certainly weren't looking at him very closely. He had some positions open, mostly bluechip companies though , and there didn't seem to be any pattern in his buying or selling. Perhaps Mr Reeves had just been lucky ?

Selena paused,

A beautiful soprano voice carried through a solo before the male voices began to do their round against their female counterparts.#

Selena began the painstaking task of trying to match his buying patterns to 'news', perhaps there was something to his predictive powers she couldn't see by his buying and selling alone. Gradually she tried to form an effective search filter and let the program fly to see what she could find.

=========

KYRIE 5:51

#The baritones sounded out their deep tones as the the short staccato notes of the sopranos urged them on, the sense of an impending crescendo immediately obvious #

The loading dock security shutter opened and the catering supply truck began to back itself in, the reversing horn beeping as the driver skillfully approached the raised unloading platform adjacent to the kitchen section of the prison.

PPPSSSSSST

The pneumatic brakes hissed loudly as the lorry came to a halt and the engine shut off. The driver athletically dropped out the tractor unit to the floor and climbed up the steps of the dock, clipboard in hand as a prison guard approached.

"Hi" said the baseball cap wearing driver.

"Hey .... you're late .... you know you're meant to be here between two and three right ..." the guard said gruffly.

"Yeah there was a hold up on the highway, some accident or something ..." the driver replied.

"Sure ... anyway ... where's the regular guy ....." The guard said as he took the clipboard and glanced it over. The paperwork looked in order and the ID badge the driver had seemed ok on first inspection.

"I don't know, I was asked to do the run last minute ..." the driver said as he began to remove the locks from the big rear door, sliding the large single latch undone.

"OK, lets see what you've ..." the guard began.

CLICKITY-CLICKITY-CLICKITY-CLICK

The drums punctuated the moment as the guard began to convulse wildly and stumbled forward into the back of the truck. Now out of sight the driver ducked inside behind him and the music faded

==============

DIES IRAE 8:22

Like the anguished cries of angels the women's chorus broke into frightful song. 'Dies Irae' they shrilled - Judgement Day, the string section working like it was conducted by the devil himself.#

Kara stopped dead in her track hundreds of feet above the warm pacific waters. The island that lay ahead had been transformed from an idyllic paradise into a living hell. The volcano situated at the northern end of the island had been dormant for eighty years but now it was an angry death spitting monster. The horizon was aglow as the the orange bubbling mist forming at the mouth of the crater threatened to spill out over the top.

Kara seeing the true danger flew with urgency and closed the distance quickly. She could perceive the heat even though it didn't bother her, the main focus was on the civilians below and how to keep them safe. She needed to formulate a plan, should she try and quell the volcano or try and mitigate its affect on the people to the south ?

To quell a volcano .... how ? There would be millions of gallons of molten rock in the hollow peak, throwing water at it would probably create super heated steam. Her mind recalled a time when a steel mill suffered a grave accident, molten metal poured onto water causing an explosion. Perhaps a plug of rock ? That could be risky too, stop pressure escaping in one place and cause it to build up somewhere else, somewhere unseen, somewhere dangerous.

The bass notes of the male choir arguing with the angelic sopranos, the violins tumbled frantically through their notes as the devil drove them on

Kara decided, mother nature wasn't going to be stopped, but delayed. For all her strength and powers she knew that the volcano couldn't be stopped, she would have to try and minimize its effects instead. A channel of larva had already begun to breach the south side of the volcano and a river of hot glowing death oozed downhill.

While appearing slow, the flow was deceptive, it would be less than an hour before it reached the edges of the villages downhill. Kara decided to act, with a quick glance to check the way was clear Kara focused her attention on the ground and let loose with her heat vision, she was going to carve a channel in the ground towards the east, to the coastline and divert the flow.

===============

TUBA MIRUM 10:08

A sole brass trombone confidently played as a bass sang like he was lecturing the listener, 'Tuba Mirum' he sang. The horn followed with him and it seemed to Selena like they were trying to tell her a story, just as the data should

Selena breathed gently, vexed by Victor Reeves, yet reassured by the music she would find the truth. Victor Reeves had occasionally had struck gold, sometimes getting involved in stocks before 'something' happened but nothing like the extremes of an oil rig blowing up. It bothered Selena that the buy, sell then short was so wonderfully timed though, there had to be more, surely?

The tenor stepped in, interrupting the flow of the music urging Selena to think of another route to the truth

Who would gain ? Perhaps the answers she needed lay at the other end of the chain, was he trading his own money, other peoples, who were his clients? Selena stopped her system running any more news analysis, it was time to start over, she was going to follow all the money, everywhere if need be.

A quartet of voices were singing almost as if they were singularly giving heartfelt advice as the orchestra followed them with a warm melody#

Selena smiled at the timing, it was almost as if the voices singing in the long dead language agreed this was the right thing to do.

===============

REX TREMENDAE 13:15

Strings and brass led out with a business like style, 'We are here !!' they said. Their short articulate notes were almost like words clearly spoken until the shrill cry of 'REX!' , 'KING!'

The black clad assault team, gas masks on, poured from the back of the catering supply truck and stormed into the soft underbelly of the prison, the kitchen loading dock and the kitchens themselves.

Inside the truck a technician glanced occasionally at the disabled prison guard while managing the hack of the wireless camera feed network. He allowed himself a light laugh as he watched the control room continue on, business as usual, while on another set of screens he played "spot the difference" , the real situation, men gassed and falling to the ground, while the substituted feed showed all was well.

The women's choir let out a calming phrase, the violins speaking for them as the women took breath before the males replied. The violins, like butterfly wings carried the voices until they faded out

"Its good to be King of the network !" thought the hacker as he prepared another fake streaming loop of footage to mask the progress of the assault team.

================

RECORDARE 15:25

#Woodwinds led the strings into a moment of quiet contemplation, the mood thoughtful but light, the violins gently encouraging the heroine on her way#

Kara was carving a channel into the earth, this was going to be her firebreak, the first line of defense in what was going to be the ground war of the battle. In the distance the volcano rumbled again a slow rising column of ash threatening to obscure the might of the sun.

The blond heroine put the volcano our of her mind and renewed her efforts trying to keep her line efficient, the direct route not always the best route, she wanted to keep her route as downhill as possible. Slowly the background noise faded from her mind, she was focused, she was driven, she was Super.

The gentle dancing of the violins was like the flow of lava as it sloshed into the freshly gouged out channel of earth

Behind her the channel was already starting to accept its first delivery of white hot molten rock which hissed angrily as it touched fallen leaves and grass, instantly incinerating everything in its path.

================

CONFUTATIS MALEDICTIS 20:09

#Strong angry male voices boomed over the heavy drums in dramatic revelation - Selena had found something ! #

Selena had made progress, some of the more, should we say, 'lucky trades' had been executed in favor of a charity. The odd thing was, some of these opportunities could have been worth oh so much more yet they had held back. Selena was tracking down that charity now but her mind contemplated the lack of greed on Victor's part. Some of these trades could have been worth a fortune yet .... hmmm.

Happy that there was at least some merit to the idea that the oil platform incident could have at least been foreseen, that perhaps it wasn't an accident, Selena began to analyze all the information she could get on the incident. She wasn't aware of any chatter on the grid about terrorism or any specific criminal activity, no industrial espionage or sabotage, so what was going on?

The battle between the voices of the angry men and the soothing women raged as Selena sought to order her thoughts

Eyes closed, Selena emptied her mind, there was more to this than just getting money, or manipulating share prices, there was a hidden motive, and the motive was shaping all that was happening.

Gentle angelic voices quenched the anger, the quiet violins and their trios of short fired notes soothed the calming voices passage to the end

==============

LACRIMOSA 22:22

#The haunting paired notes of the violins introduced the heavenly voices, 'Lacrimosa' cried the woman's choir which began to climb through the range of their voices #

The 'network king' clicked away at his equipment in the truck as the assault team had begun to wreak havoc inside the prison. The South Wing had been cunningly carved off from the rest of the prison, video reality had been substituted for video trickery, guards lay unconscious and prisoners roared in delight in their cells.A shower of flaming toilet rolls littered the floor of the wing as the assault team made their way to the higher security area.

Watching carefully on the feed, the 'network king' decided it was time to cause some disruption elsewhere and shut down the video to the West Wing. He had to be subtle, he didn't want to create a total lock down, just divert resources elsewhere. Soon enough some of the reserves had been diverted away from their patrol and had massed at the edge of the compromised West Wing, warily waiting to have sufficient numbers before entering the blind spot of the surveillance system.

The assault squad stacked up by a door that lead to the secure wing and opened it using the swipe card of a downed guard. They were close, the target was here, Kimberly Sanderson.

'Lacrimosa' sang the choir solemnly, the ghostly like melody of the violins continued, the mixed voices of the choir inspiring and emotionally rousing#

Storming into the last zone, a group of gas grenades led the charge followed by the PHUT PHUT PHUT of non-lethal pepper spray paint balls as the remaining guards fell to the ground, taken completely unawares.

A cell door was released and two of the masked men entered ...

Kimberly stood against the back wall of her cell, unsurprised at her rescue, she knew in her heart it was coming. Her eyes were on fire but she didn't care, she stood their sinisterly, muscular arms folded, her clean shaven head slightly glistening with sweat.

"That's her ..." confirmed one man to the other as they begun to quickly get a gas mask over her head.

Rising to a crescendo, the eerie violins, their pairs of broadly stroked notes with the strident brass brought the movement to an end ...'Amen' cried the voices reverently as the movement ended

"Amen, my brother" hissed Kimberly

==============

DOMINE JESU 25:12

Rousing, almost celebratory, the playful singing and music introduced the piece before turning almost demonic for a few moments

Selena was rifling through hundreds of file photos, some from AP and GETTY, some were on local Scottish news, some from the UK's BBC News. She had seen something, she wasn't sure if it was of who she thought it was though ....

Clicking and clicking Selena searched and searched until ...

As an image appeared on the screen, the male choir broke out into demonic incantations supported by the organ as if the devil himself appeared causing the sopranos to shrill in surprise

"There you are ...... I know you ....." said Selena, not knowing if to celebrate her discovery like the happier voices in the music or to be worried by the demonic tone the piece had taken.

The man in the photo was Mr Nordic, she had seen him aboard the plane while she had helped plant the Seeds of Deception many many weeks ago. The scene in the photo was a hospital, survivors from the accident were being taken in to the Emergency department yet it seemed Mr Nordic was caught in the photo as he was leaving.

"What were you doing there .... did you cause this accident ?" Selena wondered. If The Resolution had been hired to blow something up she would have thought she would have picked it up already, and she knew they wouldn't be working off the books. Whoever hired them wasn't a heavy hitter else Selena would have noticed, whoever this was had money but ...

"No casualties ...." Selena thought to herself.

It would be tough to carry out an order like 'no casualties' blowing up an oil rig, someone had a heart and a wallet to act out its desires. Again there seemed to be some odd agenda, a hidden motive, if you're going to blow it up for some share deal just blow it up. Casualties would only serve to drive the price even lower making a bigger win on that lucrative financial bet.

The sopranos sang happily, Selena was on the right track, but the deep angry tones of the male choir and the strident final notes of the horns said she had to keep looking elsewhere as the passage of music came to an end

Selena wondered if the benefactor of Victors share dealings was the answer. It was a charity, someone was trying to do good, by doing bad, if that really was what was going on. That would explain someones careful vandalism of the oil platform.

===============

HOSTIAS 28:45

#The warm tones of the violins led the piece followed by calming lullaby tones of the female chorus as they introduced the piece #

Kara admired her work, the white hot river of death had been diverted away from the nearby villages, the hot molten rock slowly began to disperse like tar as it flowed into the sea.If things stayed as they were then at least this part of the battle was contained. Kara noted that Visibility was dropping as day was being dragged kicking and screaming into the night by the ever climbing tower of volcanic ash. For her this wasn't a problem, for everyone else though it might make escape difficult.

Ascending high into the air Kara surveyed the battlefield, her keen eyes making out the columns of people walking towards safety with the occasional vehicle passing by. The island was mostly cast into shadow and the heroine attempted to blow the dust away and unobscure the sun. The cloud however wasn't co-operating and just swirled around her efforts. Kara cursed at herself seeing her attempts fail and returned closer to the ground.

Scanning with her vision she began to sweep over the areas in the front line of danger. Back and forth she flew and then saw the small building with occupants inside. She set down by the door and noted that inside was an adult woman unconscious on the floor, two infants nearby.

Kara gently forced the door and entered. It seemed that some debris had fallen through the roof and had knocked the woman to the ground. Kara glanced around her and noted the free standing steel bath tub in the small area made into a bathroom. Kara lifted the tub and moved it into the living area then carefully placed the woman inside. The two children were screaming their unhappiness but were quickly stunned into silence as Kara lifted them into the tub with their mother and took them out the doorway.

Kara winked as the children began to comprehend the reality of the situation, the ground now passing by beneath them. Kara flew up along the column of people to the head of the line and saw a light military presence starting to form up to receive survivors. White Land Rovers carrying a red cross on their side had begun to dispatch their medics and Kara set herself down amongst them. Two medics dashed to the heroine and glanced inside the tub before signalling the thumbs up.

#The soothing lullaby that played as the medics attended to the injured woman was quickly overrun by the strong male voices as the horns blasted their ominous chords ...#

Kara glanced back at the volcano, its growling bubbling innards growing ever angrier. Kara knew in her heart the battle had barely got started.

==================

SANCTUS 32:40

With grace and majesty the orchestra began, the chant of 'Sanctus' ran over the top of the regal sounding score - the choir of angels adoringly welcomed their fallen bringer of death into the light

The black clad assault team burst from the kitchen storeroom doorway, the cloud of smoke billowing out with them. In the center of the group the orange jumpsuited Kimberly stepped into the fresh air, the first time she had tasted freedom in months.

Peeling the mask from her face she found herself being led into the back of the catering truck, stepping over the unconscious guard. With a wicked smile Kimberly let a lazy foot catch the prone man in the ribs. The 'network king' decided it was time to leave one last present for the totally unaware control room guards and rerouted their feeds so they merely received a feed of themselves watching themselves.

A black clad man dragged the prone guard onto the loading dock before returning while the driver resealed the truck, closing the assault team inside.

"Go go go go ....." called out a voice.

The male voices supported by their female counterparts sang in congratulations like it was a glorious celebration - they had pulled it off - Kimberly had escaped

The engine started, the brakes hissed and then the vehicle pulled away.

=====================

BENEDICTUS 34:05

With a fancy introduction, the violins sounded like a doting mother explaining the birds and the bees, the soprano following in the same friendly vein

Selena had been tracking down the benefactors of Victor Reeves fortuitous trading and finally had it. "The Victim's Voice", a support charity, it provided care, counseling, legal assistance and all manner of help to the family of victims who had fallen prey to one Kimberly Sanderson, The Tattoo Parlor Slasher, The Body Mod Monster.

"Oh my god ...." Selena said aloud.

#'Benedictus' sang the quartet in such a kind parental way, it was as if they were saying ... 'Now you understand?' as the horns with their rousing score hinted .... 'yes so that must mean....? '#

The threads were barely meeting in the middle but she could see it, someone had tried to set up the share trade, then had blown up the rig to capitalize on the deal. Even better, this was an attack on Kimberly's brother, Bobby whose corporation owned the rig. Selena remembered how powerful the hunger of revenge really was, it was strong, potentially corrupting.

Selena clapped her hands together "Ha! Now I'm getting somewhere !"

The chorus broke out into celebratory song, the orchestra followed, the strings playing with joy and then the piece ended

=====================

AGNUS DEI 39:20

#The horns sounded forlorn, the violins despondent as the drum marked the pace of a funeral march.....'Agnus Dei' chanted the mournful chorus, they called for a sacrificial lamb#

Kara's heart sank with dread. She was the immovable object, the pyroclastic cloud that exploded from the south flank of the volcano, the unstoppable force. The cloud, composed of dense choking gasses and unbreathable fine dust was for a moment frozen in time by Kara's unblinking eye.

"oh my god ...." Kara said to herself.

The momentarily rapid beating of the drum mimicked the heroines heart

This is what she had been dreading, the hot dense nebulous cloud was a high speed wall of death. Such clouds flowed like avalanches, their densities so great they could sweep trees from their paths. The gaseous wall would break over Kara untroubled, like a tidal wave over a pebble. How can you block the path of a gas with mere limbs, super-powered or not. She could try and divert the cloud with a lung full of effort, but, what was a few litres of air, superchilled, superheated, or superfast, compared to the thousands of tonnes of material flowing her way?

'Agnus Dei' begged the chorus - urging the heroine to do something - anything

Her mind quickly considered what to do, like the channel she had carved into the ground she needed an air channel to draw the cloud into. This was going to need a gargantuan effort, maybe the ultimate effort.

Kara blinked, the cloud resumed moving in super slow motion as she launched herself at full speed into the fray. Curving her flight path Kara began to fly in a a large conical pattern, her cloak and skirt protesting the high g-forces. Creating a pocket of twisting air the negative pressure inside the vortex began to tug at the cloud drawing it slightly upwards.

"This ..... this could work ....." Kara said to herself.

'Agnus Dei' sang the chorus, as the sacrificial lamb ascended, the wall of death drawing towards her, the strained notes of the violins chasing her upwards to dizzying heights

=======================

COMMUNIO 42:35

#The violins returned to where they had began as the soprano marked the beginning of the end before the confident strings lifted the entire chorus..the final celebration of Victor Reeves#

"Where are you taking me ?" Asked Kimberly.

"Somewhere safe ..." replied a skin-headed mercenary.

"Define safe ....." she hissed.

The mercenary smiled knowingly in reply...."Your brother will explain everything ...."

The tempo changed, the male and female voices with their short punchy notes, the busy strings chasing them as the angry horns interrupted where they could

Kimberly scowled back, no longer a prisoner of the system she was now a prisoner of her brother.

=========================

Selena flinched, she had been so engaged with the music that as the final passage of her live recording ended the applause of the audience took her by surprise.

She had been composing a message to Lucy and Lisa, she had answers for them. While she didn't think the murder was any more than unlucky coincidence it seemed Victor Reeves had been making money for a charity which had on several occasions capitalized on Bobby Sanderson's misfortune. The money he was making on those trades had been helping the family's of victims of Bobby's sister.

They needed to find the origin of Victor's information, perhaps someone at the charity would know? Time to hand this case back to her duo of misfits in New York and let Kara check out the oil rig to see if there was anything more to the story.

========================

Kara was exhausted, the pyroclastic cloud had been drawn to the heavens, furious bolts of lightning cracked all around her as the static discharge between air, the now cooling hot gas and dust sought to discharge itself. Far below the wind had been sucked in from all around carrying the cloud of death out of harms way although the escaping people found themselves in winds rivaling a good storm. Trees were still swaying as the moist coastal air seemed to fill the void.

Kara was falling, her strength gone but recovering as she continued to drop but she was at peace, she wasn't afraid. Breathing gently in, gently out, she felt her weakness ebb away, the rushing air which whistled past her ears slowing as she approached the ground. Slower, slower she literally found her self coming to a slow controlled stop, inches from the ground, Agnus Dei - the sacrificial lamb had been spared today.

Looking up it was as if a nuclear weapon had gone off, the normally ground hugging cloud had reached high into the atmosphere thanks to her efforts and the high speed, high altitude winds had started to scatter the dangerous cloud causing an ominous mushroom effect way up high.

For now the volcano was toothless, it had fired its main arsenal of weapons and for the moment, Kara was the victor.